---
title: "How Games Are Built"
url: https://betongood.foundation/design/
description: "Paytables, hold targets, reel weighting and the trade between edge and playing time."
---

# How Games Are Built

[Bet On Good](https://betongood.foundation/)

Notes on chance, odds and the design of games

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[Board index](https://betongood.foundation/)

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How Games Are Built

How Games Are Built

A commercial game of chance is a designed object. Its rules are chosen, not discovered, and they are chosen against numerical targets: how much of the money staked the game retains, how long a given bankroll lasts, and how often the player sees something happen. These entries describe how those targets are met.

Entries in this category

*Entries filed under How Games Are Built.*

| Entry type | Entry | Last updated | Sections | Figures |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| worked arithmetic | [How a game of chance is designed](https://betongood.foundation/design/how-games-are-designed/)Designing a game means choosing a paytable that hits a target return while keeping the play long enough and eventful enough to continue. The edge is an input to the design, not an outcome of it. | 17 August 2026 | 4 | 1 |
| worked arithmetic | [The mathematics inside a reel machine](https://betongood.foundation/design/slot-machine-mathematics/)A reel machine's odds come from a weighted list of stops rather than from the symbols visible on the reel strip, which is why the display cannot be counted to recover the probabilities. | 17 August 2026 | 4 | 1 |

Sections within these entries

[How a game of chance is designed](https://betongood.foundation/design/how-games-are-designed/)

design

- [The target comes first](https://betongood.foundation/design/how-games-are-designed/#s1)
- [The three quantities being traded](https://betongood.foundation/design/how-games-are-designed/#s2)
- [Playing time as the real product](https://betongood.foundation/design/how-games-are-designed/#s3)
- [What the designer cannot do](https://betongood.foundation/design/how-games-are-designed/#s4)

[The mathematics inside a reel machine](https://betongood.foundation/design/slot-machine-mathematics/)

design

- [The mechanical constraint and how it was removed](https://betongood.foundation/design/slot-machine-mathematics/#s1)
- [Weighting, and why the strip cannot be counted](https://betongood.foundation/design/slot-machine-mathematics/#s2)
- [Working out the return](https://betongood.foundation/design/slot-machine-mathematics/#s3)
- [Random selection and the meaning of a cycle](https://betongood.foundation/design/slot-machine-mathematics/#s4)

Jump to category

[The Mathematics of Odds](https://betongood.foundation/odds/)

[Lotteries and Betting in History](https://betongood.foundation/history/)

[How Games Are Built](https://betongood.foundation/design/)

[Rules and Regulation](https://betongood.foundation/regulation/)

[Return to board index](https://betongood.foundation/)

Entry carries worked arithmetic with the steps shown.

Entry is narrative: history, development or design reasoning.

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